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Monday Night at Eight

Field	Value
runtime	60 minutes
home_station
first_aired
last_aired
other_names	Monday Night at Seven
format	Magazine/Variety
presenter	Ronnie Waldman
producer	Harry S. Pepper
start_time	20:00
end_time	21:00
country	United Kingdom
language	English

Monday Night at Eight was a weekly BBC radio magazine and variety programme that was broadcast live on the BBC Home Service, with Ronnie Waldman doing the interviews and announcements, produced by Harry S. Pepper.

The programme was launched in April 1937 on the BBC National Programme under the title Monday Night at Seven, running from 7pm to 8pm. In October 1939 it was changed to "Monday Night at Eight", with the start time being put back to 8pm and the show ran in this time slot until 1948. The change of time was due to longer working hours during World War II, thus enabling more people to listen.

The formats for both programmes were similar. The first part consisted of interviews of all types of people; then there was a musical break, and the final part was a radio detective play. Initially it was Inspector Hornleigh Investigates, but in 1942 a new series called Dr Morelle was introduced. Another feature that was started in Monday Night at Eight was Puzzle Corner, also used in later programmes, and the weekly 'Deliberate Mistake'. Popular comedians Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch contributed "Chestnut Corner". One weekly comedy sketch was "The Dooms". These were a family of witches and warlocks who had strange adventures at home. When all was quiet at the end, Mrs Drusilla Doom (Hermione Gingold) would ask her husband (Alfred Marks) in a sepulchral voice - "Tea, Edmond ?" (pause) "Milluck ?" (i.e. milk).

Another regular feature of each show was a record of the life of "Old Ebenezer", a night watchman sitting in front of his brazier in a road where repairs were taking place. Fantastic stories were recounted, after which Ebenezer would give way to his astonishment with his famous catch phrase, "Well I'll be jiggered!". "Old Ebenezer" was voiced by character actor Richard Goolden.

Several actors and singers had their radio debut on Monday Night at Eight. The singer Anne Shelton had her debut in 1940 and Julie Andrews appeared with her mother and stepfather in 1947.

After the change of time, the lyrics of the signature tune at the beginning of the show were:

At the end of every programme:

References

(1947-10-10). "Monday Night at Eight".
(2003). "Vicar to Dad's Army: The Frank Williams Story". [[Canterbury Press]].

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

bbc-home-service-programmes 1937-radio-programme-debuts 1948-radio-programme-endings 1930s-british-radio-programmes 1940s-british-radio-programmes

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